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New publications for August 2022. Pre-orders will be accepted from today, 5 August. The scheduled date of sale is 25 Aug 2022.
Daniel Kramer: 6 Concert Etudes & Credo
Daniel Kramer’s “6 Concert Etudes”, first published by a Russian (former Soviet Union) publisher in 1987 in a combined edition of around 9930 copies with Nikolai Kapustin’s “8 Concert Etudes”, was a very difficult score to find. For this re-publication, Kramer revised the score by adding fingerings and revising the tempo. Together with the concert etudes, a long version of his masterpiece “Credo”, previously only available in an informally scored version by a third party, has also been supervised by Kramer and included as an official version in this score.
Václav Krahulík: Etudes in Jazz for piano, Volume I (Nos. 1-5)
The Czech Republic pianist Václav Krahulík’s “Etudes in Jazz” (15 Etudes in 3 volumes) will finally be published. Krahulík became familiar with jazz and classical music at an early age under the influence of his father, and studied piano at the Prague Conservatory with Pavel Štěpán, known for his performances of Josef Suk’s piano works. Krahulík says “I never considered myself as a composer”, and the publication “Etudes in Jazz” is a reflection of his improvisations, which over time have taken on a certain form, and which are based on the language of jazz and classical music. Each piece is only 3-4 minutes long, making it very suitable as an encore or recital piece.
Rachmaninoff/Yoonie Han: Andante Cantabile (Variation XVIII) from « Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini » (Transcription for piano) Yoonie Han, winner of numerous piano competitions and currently Assistant Professor of Piano at Hong Kong Baptist University, has made a piano transcription of the 18th variation “Andante Cantabile” from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”. This transcription also appears on her piano album “Hollywood Romance”, released in 2020. The film “Somewhere in Time”, broadcast in 1980, also uses “Andante cantabile” as a love theme, and many people discovered Rachmaninoff through this film.
Respighi/Antonio Pompa-Baldi: Violin Sonata in B minor (Transcription for solo piano)
The “Violin Sonata in B minor”, considered one of the masterpieces of Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, has been transformed into a “Piano Sonata” by the pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi. The transcription was written in a few months during the Covid-19 outbreak, and a performance video was posted on YouTube by Pompa-Baldi himself. The video was very well received and there were many requests for the publication of the score. The piece is naturally challenging, as it requires extensive use of the sostenuto pedal in order to create effective acoustic effects. You can see his advanced pedal technique in the performance video.
Roberto Piana: Grand Fantasy on Puccini’s La Bohème for piano
Roberto Piana, a leading Italian composer-pianist, described the act of writing operatic paraphrases (fantasias) for piano as ‘an institute in refining a piece of music’, and through this creative act, he explored the possibilities of the piano. This “Grand Fantasy on Puccini’s « La Bohème » for piano” by Roberto Piana this time, takes about 30 minutes to perform and requires a high level of skill and musicality to play. Throughout the piece, some arias we have all heard at one time or another, such as ‘Sì, mi chiamano Mimì’, ‘Quando men vo’ and ‘Vecchia zimarra, senti’, will also appear and will feel somewhat familiar to you.